Roses, Made by Hands
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM preslash. Series of one-shots set during eighth year, as Harry and Draco, quietly, make things together.
1. Roses, Made by Hands

**Title: **Roses, Made By Hands

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco preslash.

**Warnings: **Language, flangst. EWE.

**Rating: **PG

**Wordcount:** 2000

**Summary: **Draco was trying to find one place where he could go to be by himself, and of course who should come after him there, but Harry Bloody Potter.

**Author's Notes: **First in Made by Hands, a series of deliberately fluffy little fics about Harry and Draco getting closer and then getting together. Set in the eighth year, and unconnected to anything else I've done. I don't know yet how many there will be.

**Roses, Made by Hands**

The roses around Draco weren't real.

He thought he liked them all the better for that.

He leaned his head against the cool mosaic of the wall and closed his eyes. The roses still swam in front of them, however. He'd spent too long looking at them for it to be otherwise. The mosaic showed rosebushes with unnaturally vivid colors, pink and white and red and yellow, climbing on green vines across a white and black background, aiming for a sun that was suggested more than seen. It was the sole decoration-so far-in a large, empty room that was someday going to be the centerpiece of the Museum of the War.

Draco wondered when they would have to change the name. One day a generation would come along who didn't necessarily know what war they were talking about. Draco hoped he lived long enough to see it.

Sometimes he didn't know if he would, despite the conclusion of his own trial and his ability to go on living. There were the imprisonment of his father, the taking away of his family's Manor, and his mother's quiet stoicism to make him feel ashamed of complaining or weeping.

But what should he do, if complaining and weeping were the only things that seemed to matter?

A footstep sounded behind him. Draco hastily stood up and turned around. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to see him and imagine him in mourning, even for a single moment. He was stronger than that. He was better than that. He knew he must be, because his mother told him so.

"Pure-bloods are never so pure as when their enemies try to destroy them," she had said that morning, rocking in a beam of sunlight that made her pale hair shine. She was the only beautiful thing in the small flat they had rented, Draco thought. "Then we rise from the ashes, shining like phoenixes."

She was capable of doing that. Draco didn't think he could. But he tried, because not to would disappoint her and dim that beauty.

His facade cracked when he saw the man who had invaded the room behind him, though. He _knew _it did. Because the man was Harry Bloody Potter, carelessly elegant in Muggle jeans and shoes and a cloak draped over everything despite the fact that it wasn't Muggle.

Potter had grown in the three summer months since the war, or maybe that was Draco's imagination. But he was tired of thinking that things were his imagination, or that obstacles only existed in his mind, the way his mother was always telling him, so he chose to think it was reality this time. His eyes were brighter, his hair was more mussed, and all in all he seemed to have decided that standards were for other people and he was going to enjoy himself.

He nodded at Draco as if he'd expected to find him here and leaned forwards to examine the mosaic of the roses, although he didn't move from his spot. Draco sneered. Potter's pretense was pathetic. Draco knew he couldn't see anything from where he stood, which must mean that he had come here to speak to Draco, and for no other reason.

"What do you want?" To Draco's shock and horror, his voice had a smudge of tears in it. He swiped hastily at his eyes and nose and hoped that Potter wouldn't know his mother's dictum, that all pure-bloods carried handkerchiefs at all times.

Potter looked as if he'd expected to hear the emotion, too, and honestly, did nothing ever fucking _surprise _him anymore? "To talk to you," he said. "I wanted to ask you a question, but all my owls got turned away after the one I sent with your wand."

Draco let his hand drift towards the hawthorn wand for a second, then decided that was too vulnerable a gesture in front of Potter and sneered instead. "What value could you be to me, after that?" he asked. "We _know _that you can't get my father out of prison." His mother had forbidden him to send Potter a begging letter, but Draco had cornered him just after his father's trial anyway, and asked. Potter had given Draco a pitying look and a single shake of his head, no more than that. Which meant Draco was never going to put himself in the position of asking anything from Potter again.

"I wanted to know whether you were going back to Hogwarts in the autumn," Potter said, as casually as though that was a real question, or he didn't know the answer already.

"Shove off," Draco hissed, stalking a step nearer despite all the silent admonitions in his head from his mother to stay still and on his dignity. "Why would I ever go back _there _again?"

"Because your life didn't end with the war," Potter said, so simply and straightforwardly it took Draco a minute to realize what he'd said.

Rage splintered the careful mask he'd been trying to develop for his mother's sake, and he leaped in, pinning Potter against the wall opposite the one with the mosaic. Or trying, anyway. Potter somehow turned them around, and Draco found he was the one held there, gasping, with his collar in one of Potter's hands and his arm in the other.

"It didn't," Potter said, eyes drilling into him. "I thought you didn't realize that, and I was _right."_ He paused and shook his head. "I didn't want to be."

Draco laughed in his face then, because the thought of the precious Savior ever not wanting to be right was beyond stupid. "What do you care? What does it matter? McGonagall won't ever have me as a student there again, no matter what. And I refuse to be a beggar."

_I already am._

The traitorous thought flashed through his mind before he could stop it, and he turned his eyes away from Potter. But Potter's hands gentled on him, which meant he'd seen.

How Draco _hated _that.

"I won't ask for special favors for you," Potter said steadily, which made Draco wonder where his pity had gone. That wasn't the sort of thing one was supposed to say after witnessing a pure-blood show his weakness. "But you deserve the same chance as everyone else. The same as me."

Draco managed a snort. Just when he thought that Potter's ridiculous martyr complex had the chance of wrecking him, along came one of those stupid pronouncements to rescue him. "If you really think that anyone's going to agree to see me as a fucking _war hero, _then you understand nothing about the wizarding world. Or how to manipulate your fame," he had to add. He'd thought Potter could use some advice on that long ago.

"I'm not going to be drawing on my reputation, either," Potter said, as if that was his decision alone. "I want to be a normal person, and treated like one. And I'll assure that you are, too."

Draco jerked his head up. This was too much. "What did you say to me after my father's trial?" he jeered. "That you didn't make promises that you couldn't keep?"

"I didn't _say _that," Potter corrected him, still with that infuriating gentleness. "I implied it. But this time, I can make and keep the promise." He smiled, and abruptly Draco found a fire in his eyes, a meanness in the curl of his lip, that made him wonder if he was dealing with the same soft-hearted Potter he'd known before the war after all. "They think I can't," he continued, almost dreamily, turning away from Draco to look at the mosaic of roses again. "And this is the summer of celebration, the summer everyone needs after the end of the war. I haven't needed to exercise any power yet, because they haven't made me. When they do..." He glanced back at Draco, and his smile deepened. "Watch out."

Draco stared at him. Potter looked back as calmly as if they'd always been friends, as if this wasn't a complete departure from his previous behavior.

"Why?" Draco couldn't help asking, although he knew his mother would glare at him for both the question and the tone he used to ask it.

"Because you deserve the chance and the choice," Potter said. "The same as everyone else." He raised an eyebrow, and his face cooled. "I can't do anything about it if you decide to do something stupid, like try to kill me or hurt my friends. Then I'll go after you with all the force at my command. But unless that happens, I'll protect you the same way as I would Lavender, or Neville, or Hannah."

Draco didn't recognize the first or the last name, which meant they were probably some of Potter's stupid little followers. But the second name he did know, and he felt a surge of sharp anxiety run through him.

"I didn't do something heroic," he snapped, "like Longbottom did." There was a simultaneous squirm of shame and rage behind the words. Who would have thought he'd ever need to compare himself unfavorably to Longbottom? On the other hand, who would have known that he'd ever care about Potter's ideal of heroism, or wish that he had lived up to it more during the war?

"You refused to identify me to the Snatchers," Potter said. "Your mother saved my life in the Forbidden Forest. Call this my gift to you for that, if you want. Call it paying off the life-debt. And remember, it's not going to get you anything special. Just the same chance everyone has."

_Which is more than I thought I would have, _Draco completed silently.

Potter watched his face, then gave him a smile like a photographic flash and held out a letter. "McGonagall's invited you back," he said quietly. "I didn't show it to you at first because I thought you'd reject it and think of it as pity," he added, correctly anticipating Draco's next question. "But now you've at least listened. It's still your choice to come back to Hogwarts. But you have the choice."

Draco stared from the letter up to Potter's face. "Did you persuade her?" he asked.

Potter smiled. "No. There are still fairer people in the world than I am. I got the idea from her." He nodded to Draco. "See you around, Malfoy, if you want to." He paused one more time to look at the mosaic, then turned away.

Draco called after him, because he _had _to. "Why did you come here? Were you following me?"

"I saw you come in here, and I thought it would be a convenient place to talk to you." Potter's eyes were on the roses again. "But mainly, I'm here for _them. _Something beautiful that people made with their own labor. I want to do that. I'm _going _to do that."

His voice was quietly confident. Draco shook his head, not knowing what to say, not knowing if he should say something, if his mother would approve.

_You have more choices than what she wants for you, _said a voice in his head. It sounded suspiciously like Potter's.

When Draco looked up again, Potter was gone, and he-he was left to look at the roses.

Draco did for a time, and then went on his way, the letter from McGonagall firmly tucked into one pocket. Now and then, he reached down, to feel the parchment bend.

**The End.**


	2. Sculpted Light

**Title: **Sculpted Light

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco pre-slash

**Warnings: **Ignores the epilogue, "eighth-year" fic, light angst.

**Rating: **PG

**Wordcount: **2000

**Summary: **Harry comes back to Hogwarts and watches the students gathered there the first night in the Great Hall, knowing this is the night that will define some of them and break some of them—including Draco Malfoy.

**Author's Notes: **This is the sequel to "Roses, Made By Hands," a fluffy little fic posted earlier this year. Don't read this story without first reading that one.

**Sculpted Light**

Harry leaned an elbow on the Gryffindor table and nodded absently at the excited chatter going on around him. He had learned to do that, over the summer. Reporters would chatter at him, and friends, and people he slightly knew but had fought in the Battle of Hogwarts with, and Teddy when he was excited, and Mrs. Weasley trying to pretend she could ignore the empty chair at the table, and Harry could make the right responses, when he needed to make them.

It left him with an ear open to listen to the _really _important words, like Headmistress McGonagall's decision to invite Draco Malfoy and the other Slytherins who hadn't gone to prison back to Hogwarts.

And to listen to the silence, come to that.

The first-years were filing in now. That meant all the older students, including the ones, like Harry, who had missed the last year or had their educations interrupted, were already at the tables. And above them, the Great Hall's ceiling poured down a brilliant sunset, gold and orange and rose, with here and there a touch of red. It reminded Harry of the mosaic of flowers in the Museum of the War, where he had found Malfoy to deliver McGonagall's invitation.

He leaned back and looked up at the light for a second. At the moment, the Slytherins huddled close together on their benches, not threatening or being threatened by anyone. Harry could ease his protective gaze on them and enjoy the sheer magic that the ceiling had brought into existence.

Clouds sailing across the sunset, the early stars coming out, the full moon rising in one corner, and the first-years gasping aloud as they walked into the room and looked up to see the first huge magic most of them would ever have seen…

_I want to keep it like that for them. I told Malfoy I wanted to find something beautiful to make, and that's mine. Make sure they can grow up without learning half the things I had to learn. Adults should fight wars, not children. _

Harry looked down, feeling his heart pound with its own mixture of wonder and excitement, and met Malfoy's eyes. Malfoy leaned forwards with his elbows on the table as if he would spring off it in a second and dash away. Maybe charge at Harry, maybe charge out the door. Harry found it hard to tell.

He looked curiously back, waiting. Maybe it was just because of the decision he had made, but he felt passive and at peace. Malfoy could do either of those things, and Harry would either defend himself or go after Malfoy and talk him into returning. Either would be fine. He could do either. He could do _anything_.

But Malfoy shook his head and turned away, and just then Harry saw the glow of a spell at the far end of the Gryffindor table, where Dennis Creevey was sitting.

Harry brought his wand up and down smoothly. A Shield Charm formed in front of the table, a new kind that Harry had spent the summer designing, and ate the curse like a python eating a deer. Several of the new students waiting in line for the Sorting Hat laughed and applauded, but other people turned around and stared.

Harry leaned around Ron and Hermione and Seamus and a bunch of other people so Dennis could see him. He was in time. Dennis was starting to jump to his feet with his mouth open, but he sat down when he saw Harry.

"I know where that curse was aimed," Harry told him, keeping his voice pleasant and conversational. He couldn't whisper this, and he couldn't shout it. He wanted everyone to know there would be no secrets and no advertising. "The Slytherin table. You know that no one sitting there killed Colin."

Dennis was silent for a few seconds, his face so dark with his scowl that Harry was impressed in spite of himself. He waited, and sure enough, Dennis's voice snapped out, flashing like the curse. "They were _with _the people who did it! And they're here and not in jail where they belong!"

"Yes, they are," Harry agreed quietly. "They're here. They didn't deserve to go to jail. The Wizengamot said they didn't, and Headmistress McGonagall invited them back. So it isn't your place and it isn't mine to say they shouldn't be here."

A cough behind him made him glance over his shoulder. McGonagall was setting the Sorting Hat down on the stool, and giving Harry a significant look. Harry nodded back. It was important to make sure that everyone knew Harry and the Headmistress wouldn't stand for anyone treating the Slytherins wrong, but they also didn't want to terrify the first-years or make them focus more on House battles than on their Sorting.

Harry turned back and lowered his voice so only Dennis and the few people that sat between them could hear him. "I'll make sure I Disarm them and Stun them if it turns out they're trying to hurt someone, Dennis. I already told them I wouldn't tolerate them attacking me because we won the war, or attacking my friends." Dennis blinked up at him, probably because Harry had called him "friend." Harry smiled warmly back at him. Yes, the Creevey brothers had been annoying when they were in school together, but compared to some of the stupid people Harry had met this summer, they were shining beacons of light. "But that means we have to do the same thing. No attacking them. No insisting that we can curse them and they can't curse us, because somehow it's okay when we do it. It isn't okay. We have to make sure that the war doesn't start again."

Dennis stared at him, then glanced down at the floor. "But when the first-years come in, they're just going to hear everything," he said. "If they don't know it already. You can try to protect them, Harry, but it's not going to work."

Harry raised an eyebrow, surprised and impressed that Dennis knew he was doing this just as much for the first-years not Sorted into Houses yet as for the Slytherins.

"I can't protect them from everything, no," he said. "I can't protect them from other people telling them other Houses are stupid and their House is the best." He glanced up and down the table. "But I can speak against it happening in Gryffindor," he added.

Seamus flushed and looked away. Ron just nodded, serious and determined, and Hermione put her hand on his sleeve and nodded with him.

"That's all I can do," Harry said, returning his gaze to Dennis. "All I can. Make sure everything is as fair as possible. It'll never be completely fair, but it's not going to start with a Gryffindor cursing a Slytherin. Not when I'm right here and I can stop it."

Dennis scowled at his empty plate, but said nothing. Harry stepped back and sat down again, just as the Hat called out "RAVENCLAW!" for a little girl with hair almost as red as Ginny's. She put down the Hat and scurried over to her table, now and then glancing up at the ceiling with an expression of awe.

Harry looked up at it again, and smiled, too. He didn't know if he could make something as beautiful as that ceiling, but at least he could try.

Looking down, he caught Malfoy giving him a flat look. Harry shrugged, and sat back in peace to watch the rest of the Sorting.

* * *

><p>"Potter."<p>

Malfoy spoke with the confidence of assured command, and Harry turned back to face him with one eyebrow raised. Since when had Malfoy sounded like _that_? He'd looked broken every time Harry saw him since the end of the war, and like a sulky teenager when he spoke.

But he was standing with his legs braced and his arms folded now, and Harry could practically feel the Gryffindors compressing into a private army behind him. He winced and held up one hand. That forced some of them—except the first-years, who just watched everything wide-eyed—to look at him instead of concentrating on Malfoy's arrogance.

Well, they would see it as arrogance, anyway. Now that he looked closely, Harry could make out the pinched lines at the corners of Malfoy's mouth, and could see how his eyes looked practically squeezed out of his face by his emotions.

"It's all right, you lot," he said. "Malfoy just wants to talk to me, and we're going to leave our wands behind. See?" He flipped his wand out and tossed it to Ron, who stared at him but caught it. Then he waited.

Malfoy stared back at him, tilted his head, but seemed to understand without speaking, in fact without words. He tossed his wand high, and Parkinson was the one who caught it. She backed away from Harry immediately. Harry made a note of that. He would have to find some way to show that he didn't resent her for what she'd said about throwing him to Voldemort. Lots of people had said things like that.

Then he motioned out into the corridor beyond the Great Hall, and Malfoy walked with him. He waited until they were beyond the archway to turn around and speak in a low, passionate voice.

"You did it."

Harry blinked, his first thought that Malfoy was somehow blaming him for Dennis's curse. "Sorry?"

"You stopped the curse," Malfoy said. His stare was quite piercing, when Harry thought about it. It made him feel as if he were pinned to the wall behind him. He moved to the side, but Malfoy followed him with the gaze, rendering _that _movement useless. "Even though a Gryffindor cast it."

Harry blinked again. "Was _that _all?" he asked. "Of course I did. I told you I would."

Malfoy took a sudden step towards him. Harry couldn't keep himself from tensing, but he didn't have his wand, so that didn't have bad consequences. He just looked, and Malfoy halted.

"I didn't think you would keep your word," Malfoy whispered. "Now—I'm trying to think what it means, that I might have a future."

Harry smiled. He remembered how Malfoy had looked standing before the mosaic of roses, and he thought he might regret telling Harry how he felt in a second. He just nodded, said, "I think that's pretty common right now," and turned to the side to leave Malfoy alone with his emotions.

Malfoy reached out and caught his wrist. For someone thin and pale, he had skin that burned, like parchment on fire. Harry blinked and met his eyes again.

For a moment, he thought Malfoy would say something. Instead, he reached up and cupped Harry's jaw.

It was a brief moment, but it made Harry ring far more than it should have, setting up a vibration in his bones, making the stubble on his jaw stand on end, making him feel as if he, or Malfoy, were the one made of light, rather than the ceiling of the Great Hall.

It was just a brief moment, and then Malfoy dropped his hand, and moved away, and said, "Thank you," in the tiniest of voices, and went back to his friends to retrieve his wand.

Harry swallowed, and reached up to rest his hand where Malfoy's hand had rested. Ron looked his questions, and Hermione asked hers, when he went back to them, but he couldn't answer them. He was thinking.

He took one more look at the light in the Great Hall before he turned away. He had wanted to create something grand and beautiful like that, something people could admire for generations.

It had never once crossed his mind that he might already have begun.

**The End.**


	3. Leaves, Constructed to Make Anew

Thank you again for all the reviews!

**Title: **Leaves, Constructed to Make Anew

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.

**Warnings: **Mild angst, bullying and a bit of violence, post-war but ignores the epilogue.

**Pairings: **Harry/Draco pre-slash.

**Rating: **PG-13

**Wordcount:** 1990

**Summary:** Draco knew that being back at Hogwarts wouldn't necessarily be easy. But he never expected the particular form his distress would take one autumn afternoon.

**Author's Notes: **Sequel to "Sculpted Light" and third in a series of one-shots that show Harry and Draco growing towards a relationship in the eighth year. Fluffy. Won't make much sense without the other stories.

**Leaves, Constructed to Make Anew**

It was ridiculous. It was silly. It was unsettling. It was exactly the kind of thing that Draco didn't need distracting him when he tried to go to sleep at night. For fuck's sake, it had been _a fortnight._

But he could still feel the smooth slide of the skin along Potter's jaw beneath his hand, that night he had touched him outside the Great Hall, the night that Potter kept a Gryffindor from cursing a Slytherin.

He'd said he would do it. That was all his justification when Draco cornered him and demanded to know why he had done it.

Draco clenched the hand into a fist, and then rolled over and pounded the fist against his pillow. He kept the echoes muffled, though, because he didn't want to wake the others. His relationship with Blaise in particular was strained since the war.

Potter was so _stupid_. He thought he could overcome the years of hatred between Gryffindor and Slytherin by acting alone? He thought he could somehow make the war go away and never have been?

But no, that wasn't what he wanted, was it? He wanted to secure the future instead. Draco had watched him watching the first-years, and that was the way it was. Potter couldn't bring back the dead, but he could try to ensure that these children never knew the depths of hatred that had made their parents and brothers and sisters fight each other.

That he _knew _that kind of thing, without talking to Potter in detail, only made Draco all the angrier. He rolled over again and closed his eyes, relentlessly chasing down stillness. Maybe he would brew himself a Dreamless Sleep potion tomorrow.

His mind still rang with echoes, and so did his hand, for endless moments before he fell asleep.

* * *

><p>Draco scowled down at the ingredients list, and kicked his way along the floor of the Forbidden Forest. It was high noon, on a bright day with sunlight striking down through the branches, but that hardly mattered, did it? They still had to go in here to find the ingredients for their potion—"their <em>own<em> potions," as Slughorn had stressed—because the fat idiot thought everyone should find them fresh instead of purchasing them or getting them from the supply cupboard.

The fat idiot also thought it was a _wonderful _idea for each student in the NEWT-level class to brew their own experimental potion, to be ready by the end of the year. Draco could only imagine what Professor Snape would have had to say to that.

Except he didn't have to imagine, did he? Because Professor Snape had a portrait in the Headmaster's office now, and Draco could go and ask him if he really wanted to.

Draco ducked his head and walked on, shuffling through the leaves for a while and then getting off on a path where there weren't any so he could walk more quietly. He could go ask him, yes, if he wasn't too much of a coward.

And that was just another reason why Potter's idea was such a stupid thing, and why nothing would ever change. If Draco, who saw the horrible things that happened at Hogwarts and Malfoy Manor during the war, still couldn't go and face the portrait of the man who'd saved his life, then what hope was there for anyone else to be courageous?

He heard a scuffle ahead of him, and warily lifted his head, letting his hand fall on his wand. Paranoia, probably, but this was still the _Forbidden _Forest, and he didn't want a centaur or something else to surprise him.

The scuffle repeated, and then there came a gasp that sounded distinctly human. Draco blinked, then grinned to himself. Catching some Hufflepuff snogging his little date in the forest would provide a way to forget about his own fear and might make him settle down enough to concentrate on the ingredients in Slughorn's list. He crept forwards, listening to make sure that the sounds didn't change in a way that would show they were aware of him, and then cautiously stuck his head around the tree.

Pansy, of all people, stood there, staring down at someone lying on the forest floor. Draco wondered for a second if someone had tried to grope her and she had taught him better. They'd all had to watch out for things like that from the Death Eaters, during the war.

But Pansy stepped to the side, and Draco saw the kid lying on the ground. Dennis Creevey, the little twit who had cast the curse at them the night of the Welcoming Feast.

Or tried to cast it, Draco couldn't help remembering. Potter had interfered in time, so that no magic had actually hit the Slytherins. Draco frowned and shifted to the side, wondering if he should really say anything. Yes, they hadn't been hit, but there was no doubt that Creevey would have _loved _it if they had been.

"Thought you'd say _that _about my mother?" Pansy hissed suddenly. "Here, then. Here's the kind of thing that I wish I could subject all you Mudbloods to for the way you've jeered about us!"

She wasn't skilled enough to cast the spell nonverbally yet, or maybe she just wanted Creevey to hear what was coming and feel even more afraid. She raised her wand, smiled sweetly at him, and whispered, "_Crucio_."

Draco felt his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth as Creevey began to writhe and scream. Pansy shouldn't—no one should—not after what they had seen last year—

Not to mention that Pansy was going to get herself sent to bloody _Azkaban, _something she'd barely dodged this summer when some people testified about the way that she had wanted to throw Potter to the Dark Lord.

Draco bit his bottom lip for a long second, and then he stepped around the tree and said, "_Finite Incantatem._"

He didn't know how much good it did, because he had never tried to use a _Finite _against one of the Unforgivable Curses. But he distracted Pansy, and that was the point. When she whirled around to face him, she wasn't holding the spell on Creevey, and he relaxed with a loud gasp and tossed his head back, blood trailing out of his open mouth.

Pansy had her mouth open in a snarl and one hand raised as though she was going to rake her nails down his face, but she stopped and blinked when she saw him. "Draco?" she whispered. "What the—what are you doing?"

"Stopping you from sending us _all _to Azkaban," Draco told her. "Because if you thought that they would think we didn't have anything to do with it, you're wrong. They judge and think of us as a group. So none of us can fuck up in any way, or people will start pressuring the Headmistress to get rid of us."

Pansy lifted her head haughtily and shook it so that her hair fanned out behind her. "He tried to curse us," she argued in a voice so low and harsh that it made the ground seem to shake under Draco's feet. "And I'm so _tired _of creeping around and smiling and pretending that I'm grateful when I'm not! They should have exiled us, they should have imprisoned us! Anything but expecting us to be bloody grateful all the time, and telling us that we'll suffer the consequences if we break the rules!"

"That's the price of a second chance," Draco said, glaring back at her. "And even if we weren't who we are, do you think they would be lenient on someone using an Unforgivable Curse on another student? _Now? Here?_"

"They wouldn't. But I might be persuaded to."

Pansy whirled around, one hand flying up her throat as she gasped. Potter was leaning on the tree behind them that was closest to Creevey, his arms around the kid. He must have Levitated him off the ground, Draco thought, but he hadn't heard it. Any more than he'd heard Potter come through the Forest in the first place.

"Instead of going to Azkaban for the rest of your life," Potter continued, staring at Pansy as if he was going to break her skull open with the sheer force of his eyes, "you might only lose this chance for a year at school. I can tell them about the stress you were under, and the way that no one can be expected to recover from that in a few months. And the fact that I'm the one saying it will make a difference. People will think I've forgiven you for what you said on the eve of the battle. Which is true."

Pansy drew herself up. "I don't want any charity from you, Potter," she said.

"That's all right," Potter said, and smiled at her, a smile with a fierce edge that made Draco want to step away. "I'm not doing it for you so much as for others." And he turned and walked over to Draco exactly as if Pansy wasn't standing there and he wasn't hauling Creevey's limp body around.

Draco found it as hard to meet Potter's look as though he had cast the spell himself. He forced himself to, biting the inside of his cheek. Potter nodded, slowly, to him.

"I told you that I would have to act against any of your friends who did something stupid," he whispered. "I'm sorry it had to happen this way, and so soon."

"It wasn't your fault," Draco said, feeling as though he was pulling the words like teeth, one by one, out of his gums. "I—thanks, Potter."

Potter's eyes were as bright and warm as some of the leaves still hanging on the trees around them. "You were the one who confronted her," he said. "I think that you're braver and more admirable than you ever gave yourself credit for."

And then he Disarmed Pansy and Stunned her, and took her away with _Mobilicorpus. _Draco stood there, watching, as Potter's little procession left through the trees.

He looked around, slowly, and recognized the shape of a leaf on a tree nearby. Or on the branch of a bush thrusting through the tree's branches, he realized, when he walked closer. He picked it up and turned it over. Flamebush, one of the ingredients that Slughorn had assigned him to make a usable potion out of by the end of the year.

As he stood there, looking at the leaf, his head still ringing from Potter's words and the way he had looked at him, Draco suddenly smiled. A vision was coming to life in his head, slowly, the way the vision of a future had begun to come to him after Potter had brought McGonagall's invitation to return for another year at Hogwarts.

He might be able to make something out of this mess, after all, he thought, as he began to pull leaves from the flamebush.

And his hand no longer itched. If he still carried the memory of touching Potter with him, it seemed content to lie, quietly, inside his skin, and wait for the future.

**The End.**


	4. Gold, As Captured Flame

**Title: **Gold, As Captured Flame

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.

**Pairings: **Harry/Draco pre-slash, Ron/Hermione mentioned.

**Warnings: **Angst, mentions of violence, "eighth year" Hogwarts fic.

**Rating: **PG

**Wordcount:** 2000

**Summary: **Harry wants to do something to show his appreciation for Malfoy's help with Parkinson. A gift might do the trick.

**Author's Notes: **This is the fourth ficlet in the "Made By Hands" series, short fics expressing Harry and Draco growing towards a relationship with each other in the year after the war. This follows "Roses, Made By Hands," "Sculpted Light," and "Leaves, Constructed to Make Anew."

**Gold, As Captured Flame**

Harry sucked thoughtfully at his quill as he watched Malfoy working with his Potions ingredients, the ones that Slughorn had assigned them to make a usable potion out of by the end of the year. Malfoy had a sharp knife, and skill; his eyes always narrowed before he cut something up, but then the knife would flash down, and he would make the cuts precisely. He worked with stirring rods as though they sprouted from his hands. He had the best timing, in terms of adding ingredients to the potion, that Harry had ever seen.

And he'd never looked up from his work or talked to anyone else in class since the day Parkinson had been arrested and taken to Azkaban for using the Cruciatus on Dennis.

Harry stirred a little as he thought about that. _He _had used the Unforgivable Curses during the war, and not been punished for it. Of course, no one had wanted to punish the Chosen One, and the curses had been on Death Eaters. And Parkinson had used the curse on Dennis when he hadn't actually hurt her; Harry had stopped Dennis's curse before it could hit any of the Slytherins in the Great Hall on the night of the welcoming feast.

But still. Her departure had made Malfoy monosyllabic and turned the other Slytherins away from everything but schoolwork, as if they were trying desperately to prove that they weren't like Parkinson. Harry wanted them to be comfortable in the school; he didn't want the war to repeat.

Something had to be done.

"Harry, you haven't done _anything _with your aconite yet."

That was Hermione. Of course it was. Harry turned around and smiled at her. "Because I'm thinking about other things to do first," he replied.

Hermione followed the direction of his gaze, and then sighed. "It's very laudable that you want to, Harry. But I think Malfoy might not appreciate it all that much if you tried to make his potion for him."

Harry stared at her, then laughed. "Is that what you thought? Oh, no, I wouldn't. I think this is the kind of thing that he has to succeed at on his own. But I want to do _something _to show him that some people appreciate his good sense."

"His good sense?" Hermione was busily studying a chart of the full moon that she seemed to have decided was going to influence her potion, but she stopped and stared at him when Harry said that. "This is the same boy we're talking about who came after you in the Room of Requirement to deliver you to Voldemort? After saving your life from the Snatchers?"

Harry waved his hand. "I think we were all mental during the war, Hermione. That's what war does to people."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "You're either being very clever or very obnoxious. I can't tell which."

"Malfoy did the right thing when Parkinson cursed Dennis," Harry told her softly, because Malfoy had begun to twitch in the way he always did when Harry watched him too long. Harry didn't want to make him _more _paranoid. "He told her to stop. And it was a risk. In the mood she was in, she might have cursed him, or done something else painful to him. He might have had selfish motives, but he did the right thing, and he didn't tell anyone because he probably thought they wouldn't believe a Slytherin. He deserves _something _for it."

"You can't start rewarding people for doing the right thing," Hermione said.

Harry stared blankly at her for a few minutes, while she began to blush. Then Harry said, "Even if the Ministry didn't always do it, _I _intend to. The Ministry didn't do anything about the Slytherin and Gryffindor rivalry when it was happening before the war, either. I want to."

"You can't do it all by yourself," Hermione said.

"Right, so you want to help me with the cost of Malfoy's gift?" Harry asked, smiling, and saw Hermione begin to smile back, in spite of herself.

* * *

><p>Ron followed behind Harry as he carried the wrapped package to the Great Hall, fussing. "What's Dennis going to think of this?" he asked, when they had reached the doorway and he seemed to realize that Harry really intended to go through with it. "You're giving something to a Slytherin after he just got <em>cursed <em>by a Slytherin."

"Malfoy wasn't the one who cursed him," Harry said calmly, over his shoulder. "And Dennis might think all Slytherins are a lump and should be cursed, from the way he reacted the night of the welcoming feast, or he might not. That doesn't mean that his thoughts should control the way I react. If I let them start mattering to me more than anything else, then I'll never get anything done." He nudged the doors of the Great Hall open and walked in before Ron could do anything but wince and gallop after him.

Harry had deliberately come to breakfast later than normal, because that way more people would be there and see the gesture. They all fell silent, staring, as Harry walked between them with the present floating behind him. Harry had wrapped it in a great, straight box, because otherwise the distinctive shape would reveal what it was to Malfoy before he opened it.

He floated the gift straight up to Malfoy and set it on his table. Malfoy stared at him around the edge of it.

"For standing up for the right thing," Harry said softly, meeting his eyes. "For your courage, no matter what the motives."

And he turned and marched away, because, actually, no one other than Malfoy needed to keep looking at his face for that long. As he walked, he heard the murmurs behind him, building into roars, into shouts, into demands for his attention. He ignored them all, and sat down at the Gryffindor table to eat his breakfast.

When he looked up from his intense search for the butter, he found himself facing Malfoy again. Of course, it was hardly his fault that the table looked that way. He nodded to him and buttered the toast in his hand, then took such a large bite that butter dripped down his chin and gave Hermione something else to scold him about.

Malfoy had touched the edge of the gift at least once, if the way his hand rested on it now was any indication. Harry doubted that he would have touched it with such confidence at first. He swallowed, and swept his hand up and down the side, then reached for his wand. A slit appeared in the box on all four sides.

Harry restrained himself from breaking into spontaneous applause as the paper fell away, because that would sound mocking to Malfoy. But it was neatly done, and he made a note that he could possibly study with Malfoy on applications of Complex Cutting Charms, which would be on the NEWTS and which Hermione was more interested in the theory behind than anything.

Malfoy stared some more. Then he slowly pulled out the golden cauldron that had been inside the package, and gaped at it.

The cauldron shone like flame. Harry had studied them for a while before he bought one, and had learned enough to ask for one like that. "Phoenix-colored," the advertisement had said, and it _did _remind Harry of Fawkes. Gold and scarlet on the sides, narrowing to blood-color near the lip, and purer yellow on the legs.

Malfoy stared at Harry again over the rim. Then he cast two spells. One of them wrapped the cauldron in a thick cage of bristling silver spikes, which Harry reckoned would impale anyone who tried to steal it, and the second floated it out of the Great Hall, in the direction of the dungeons.

Then he stood up and beckoned to Harry.

Someone tried to restrain Harry; someone said something about how Parkinson had cursed Dennis. Harry stood up, said, "And she was punished for it, and Malfoy isn't her, even if you have _really _bad eyesight," and followed Malfoy out the doorway, into the cooler shadows of the entrance hall. Even with some people peering after them, he thought this was private enough.

Malfoy turned to him. His head was lowered. His breath puffed like a bull's. Harry watched him, and made sure to show a lifted head to the people staring from behind and his empty hands to Malfoy.

A minute passed. Another. Harry wondered what strange clock Malfoy was keeping track of time by, that he was content to wait like this and not get embarrassed or ask Harry what the hell he had been thinking.

Then Malfoy said, "You didn't have to do that."

Harry shook his head, eyes on him. "Not even to reward you. I know that. You did what was right long before you were thinking about any rewards."

Malfoy shuddered. Then he said, "You said the motive didn't matter. You realize that it'll matter to others? That most of your House still isn't behind you in the effort to reconcile with us? That the newspapers are back to their stance of saying all Slytherins are rotten to the core, now that Pansy's gone?"

Harry nodded. "I know that. But I knew that—You-Know-Who was after me, too." He had decided that he should spare Malfoy's sensibilities for the present. "And the Death Eaters wanted to see me dead. And there were people out there who swung between loving and hating me based on what the _Prophet _reported. I kept going."

Malfoy stared at him, then stared at the ground. "I don't have that kind of courage," he whispered. "I can't be what you want me to."

Impulsively, Harry stepped forwards and let himself touch Malfoy's cheek the way that Malfoy had touched his a few weeks ago. Malfoy's breath flew into his lungs and didn't come out again; his eyes widened.

"I don't need you to be like me," Harry said quietly. "I need you to be like _yourself, _the person you can be now that you're in this world, on the other side of the war."

Malfoy shivered, as though Harry had coated him with snow. Harry rubbed once with his thumb, and then lowered his hands, not because he was afraid of what other people might think. He was just afraid that he might make Malfoy uncomfortable.

"Be free," Harry said. "And enjoy the gift, for whatever reason you think I gave it." He gave Malfoy a little bow and walked away. He didn't want to go back into the Great Hall now. He wanted to walk.

"I have a gift for you, too."

Harry turned his head back over his shoulder, curious. Part of him thought it might be a curse, even now; part of him thought Malfoy might have carried something around in his pocket waiting for a moment like this.

Malfoy smiled at him, a smile like glass lit from behind by light. Harry assumed that was the gift, and smiled in return. But then Malfoy said, "Thank you, Harry."

The name went through Harry like a shaft of sunlight, and before he could recover, Malfoy had vanished back into the Great Hall, leaving Harry to walk outside.

Leaving him smiling.

**The End.**


	5. Gifts, Glittering and Jeweled

**Title: **Gifts, Glittering and Jeweled

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco pre-slash

**Warnings: **Angst, Hogwarts "eighth year" fic.

**Rating: **PG-13.

**Wordcount: **1950

**Summary: **Potter's gift has left Draco in something of a dilemma about what return to make.

**Author's Notes: **Fifth in the "Made by Hands" series, sequel to "Roses, Made By Hands," "Sculpted Light," "Leaves, Constructed to Make Anew," and "Gold, As Captured Flame." This won't make much sense without the others.

**Gifts, Glittering and Jeweled**

_ What can I get him?_

Draco sat in his bed, the curtains drawn around him so he didn't have to look at other faces, and stared at the golden cauldron Potter had got him. It still shone just as much in the dim light of the dorms as it had in the brighter ones of the Great Hall. He reached out to touch it because he couldn't help himself, and his hand slid along the rim and down the smooth side as though on oil. He knew from experience that cauldrons that smooth offered brighter brewing.

He didn't know if Potter knew. Or it might be something he had only learned when he was researching cauldrons in order to buy one as a gift for Draco.

_ I need you to be like yourself, the person you can be now that you're in this world, on the other side of the war._

Draco shivered at the memory of Potter's words. He had said them right after Draco admitted that he didn't think he could be what Potter needed him to be, that no amount of gifts would change the sheer cowardice that were Draco's inheritance as a Malfoy and a Slytherin.

And Draco had given him a gift, calling him _Harry_.

But now that he thought about it from a distance, that was less than adequate. However much pleasure his gesture had given Potter, it was fleeting and not something he could touch later and remember, the way Draco could with the cauldron. He let his hand stray along the side again, and thought of the potions he could brew in it. Potter had given him something that would make the future more pleasant, not just the past.

Draco had to do the same thing.

There was another side to it, too, as he could admit after he thought about it a bit. He wanted others to see him giving the gift and Potter accepting it, the way Potter had waited to give the golden cauldron until they were in the middle of the Great Hall and others could watch how Draco opened it.

Draco knew exactly why Potter had done that. It was the clearest message he could send that he believed in the rehabilitation of the Slytherins and would fight for them even against members of his own House. Draco's message would be an acceptance of that, and let all the Slytherins who dared spit at him for being so weak as to accept Potter's help.

Draco would have another message, though, and sophisticated eyes in the crowd would understand. He would warn anyone who cared to look that, as much as he could, he extended protection back to Potter, that he was not a debtor but someone worthy of the gestures Potter was making in and of himself.

And with that decision, he solved his problem. The perfect gift slid into his head, and Draco found himself breathing softly, bowing his head the way he would do in the face of a newly completed potion.

For the first time since the cauldron arrived-for the first time since the beginning of the year, really-he rolled over and dropped into untroubled sleep. And that was a gift he had given himself, as much as Potter had played a part in it.

* * *

><p>Draco had thought and thought of a different place to give Potter his gift, but in the end, he had chosen the Great Hall for the same reason, he suspected, that Potter had chosen it. It was an easy place to reach, and everyone would be there at a time of day when post was delivered to see it.<p>

Potter's friends would also be there, and they could explain the hidden messages of the gift in the event that Potter didn't understand them-a high likelihood, considering that the gift was an artifact of a kind of bargain that wasn't practiced anymore.

Draco waited with his hand wrapped around his goblet, casting charms continually on his food to defeat the other Slytherins who were upset enough about Pansy's arrest to try and poison him. The best emotion to show them was indifference. His father had told him that long ago, and Draco had sometimes regretted not being able to follow the lesson better, with Potter, or simply decided that it didn't matter and wasn't true, with people like Pansy.

But now, it was best, because what the other Slytherins wanted was a reaction. Draco wouldn't give them one.

Or, at least, he wouldn't give them one in the traditional manner. He could make them _have _one, and he would when the gift arrived. He smiled as he saw the heavily-laden post-owl struggling through the window. He had chosen to use a common one instead of his own, to ensure that the surprise would remain a surprise until the last possible minute.

And to spare the chance that one of the over-protective Gryffindors would recognize his bird and curse it before it could get to Potter, too. Potter had an open mind and a hand stretched out to Slytherins, but the same was definitely not true of everyone at his table.

There were murmurs and gasps when the owl stooped down and let the gift fall in front of Potter. Potter took a close look at it, not touching it, and cast a few spells that made the paper flash.

Granger said something Draco couldn't hear properly, not all the way across the Hall, but which included the word "secrecy." Potter shook his head, an intent expression on his face that Draco didn't entirely understand, and cast another spell.

This time, the light which came back from the package was white, and Draco smiled as he understood. Potter had used spells at first that only looked for Dark curses or hexes. This one had revealed the artifact's innate protective magic.

And Potter looked up, straight at him, and smiled in a way that made Draco feel as though he was supported by water instead of bones. He held his breath, then let it go in a little whoosh that made him annoyed with himself, as Potter peeled back the paper and string and revealed the half-moon shape inside.

"What is it?" Weasley demanded, and then choked as Potter fully shook the paper away. As well he should, Draco thought smugly. He was counting on Weasley as the one who would explain the tradition to Potter in a way that he could understand.

Potter turned the silvery half-moon of metal back and forth in silence. Draco saw the moment when he realized what body part it was meant to fit, and narrowed his eyes as he searched, silently, for hesitation in Potter's movements.

There was none. Potter slid the gift up and around his neck, the crescent-shaped "wings" overlapping his collarbone. Draco was glad he had made the adjustments correctly. It would have been a little big for Potter's slender neck otherwise; some of Draco's ancestors had indeed been big, bull-chested wizards.

Now that the gift was correctly in place, everyone in the Great Hall could see it for what it was: a silver torque, set with glittering emeralds at either end and moonstones down the middle, along the curve. Potter reached up and curled his fingers around the metal as though wondering when it would begin to be warmed by his skin.

_At once, _Draco thought, and then shook his head for thinking something like that. There was being responsible and offering aid to Potter when he had offered aid to Draco, and then there was being ridiculous.

Potter was looking at him, though, and his face fell a little when Draco shook his head. Draco realized what he had done at once, and smiled, nodding. Potter, who had been reaching up to the ends of the torque as though he intended to remove it, paused.

"I gave it to you," Draco mouthed across the Hall to him. Really, with the way that so many people were staring at Draco and then back to Potter, Potter should have got it, but he was dim sometimes.

Potter swallowed and shut his eyes. Draco didn't think it was because the torque made swallowing difficult, either.

"Holy _shit_, mate," Weasley was saying in the meantime, loudly enough to be heard by everybody. Draco didn't think that was on purpose, but he had also counted on Weasley's lungs being powerful when he made the announcement, and so it worked. "Do you know what that is?"

Potter shook his head without looking away from Draco. Weasley didn't seem to notice, and although Draco didn't like the way he just _had _to touch the torque when he leaned forwards to examine it, he could put up with it.

"It's a duelist's torque," Weasley said, still loudly. Even a few professors were looking down the Hall now, although they might have been doing that all along and Draco just hadn't noticed them. Gifts to Harry Potter were being watched closely. "It's something a wizard's second would get them when they were about to be in a dangerous duel. It protects your neck and chest and prevents someone from hitting you there with any kind of Blasting or Cutting Curse. You couldn't wear armor in duels, it was considered unsporting, but something like this was allowed." He moved his hand towards the moonstones, and then pulled back when they flashed a warning. "I reckon it still works. Wicked! I've only seen pictures of them in some of Percy's history books."

Draco raised his chin as Potter's gaze came back to rest on him. Everything was up to Potter's reaction now. Draco had done what he could to make it reasonable, and useful to him.

And a gift to Potter. There was that, too.

Potter smiled at him, that same open smile that had dazzled Draco before, and spoke. "Thank you, Draco."

The first name, more than anything, made the Great Hall buzz. Draco knew that.

But he couldn't look away from Potter's brilliant eyes, as brilliant as those emeralds on the ends of the torque, as brilliant as light. Draco raised his head higher in response, trying to look like someone worthy to receive Potter's congratulations and fight at his side, the way that the torque declared him.

Trying to look like himself, like the Draco Potter saw.

"You're welcome," he said. Nothing more than that was needed. He sat down and resumed his breakfast.

And Potter did the same thing on the other side of the Hall, ignoring further questions about the torque, but stroking it and making it flare with color whenever Draco thought he might have forgotten it. Nor did it escape Draco's notice that Potter's hand was shaking a little when he did it.

_It worked_.

Draco swallowed a piece of toast that had never tasted so good, and raised his goblet in a silent toast. Potter did the same thing across from him, eyes still direct and clear and smile still brilliant.

_To the future, _Draco thought, and they drank.

**The End.**


	6. Algorithms of Radiance

**Title: **Algorithms of Radiance

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco pre-slash

**Warnings: **A bit of violence, a bit of angst, Hogwarts "eighth year"

**Rating: **PG-13

**Wordcount:** 2100

**Summary: **Harry expected his day to contain a dose of Draco Malfoy, but not Draco, hero-worship, _and _a duel.

**Author's Notes: **This is the sixth story in my "Made by Hands" series, quiet and fluffy one-shots showing Harry and Draco moving towards a relationship in their "eighth year" at Hogwarts. It follows, "Roses, Made by Hands," "Sculpted Light," "Leaves, Constructed to Make Anew," "Gold, Like Captured Flame," and "Gifts, Glittering and Jeweled." Read those first to make this one make sense.

**Algorithms of Radiance**

Harry laid the torque gently across his chest and throat, and then turned fussily sideways to stare at himself in the mirror. Yes, he _thought _it looked okay. He adjusted it again just to make sure, and replaced the Weasleys' watch so that the chain hung over the torque instead of beneath it. It just wasn't comfortable otherwise.

"Are you coming to breakfast, mate? Or are you going to be in here arranging your hair like a _witch _for the rest of the day?"

Harry turned around and grinned at Ron. "Don't let Hermione hear you say that. You know she thinks it's sexist."

Ron rolled his eyes. "That's her latest craze, yeah," he said, in the tone of someone who had put up with lectures on everything from house-elves' rights to the ethical implications of Memory Charms and would be glad when this set was over. "But you look _fine_, mate." He paused, darted a look at Harry, and added, "If you really have to wear Malfoy's gift everywhere, anyway."

"I don't have to." Harry smiled at him. "I want to."

Ron nodded back, a nod that said a lot more than just resignation, and ducked out of the bathroom doorway. Harry followed him, anticipating a few stares at breakfast. Plenty of people had seen Draco give him the torque yesterday, but they might think Harry had only worn it to be polite. To wear it two days in a row...

Harry was saying all sorts of things with that, and some were public, and some were private. He hoped Draco would be bright enough to pick up on the private meanings. It might be hard to corner him and explain them all.

_But it also might be _fun.

Harry went to breakfast in a thoughtful frame of mind.

* * *

><p>There were stares, yes. Lots of them. Harry raised his eyebrows at Draco's amused gaze and turned to answer the fifth question about "homework" from a group of awestruck Gryffindor first-years. It seemed that enough time had passed since the beginning of the year for the stories about him and the Battle of Hogwarts to die down a bit, but the torque had stirred them up again.<p>

_And why? Ron told me it was a duelist's torque, but most of this group is Muggleborns and wouldn't know that._

Draco was the one who gave him a clue, slipping in neatly beside Harry as he left the Great Hall that morning. "It makes you look different," he said softly, into Harry's ear. "_Higher. _Part of a nobler world."

Different, Harry could buy, but he and Draco were going to have their disagreements over his language if Draco went on like that. "Nobler," he said, raising an eyebrow in Draco's direction. "Really."

Draco flushed, but didn't pull away or remain silent the way Harry had been afraid he would. "You _know _what I mean," he snapped. "Not that I think pure-bloods are nobler than Muggleborns, or that kind of shite. Just that it puts you in a different world, and it makes them look at you in a new way."

Harry nodded slowly. He wondered about pushing, but since when did he lack courage? And Draco hadn't pulled away.

"Do you believe that, still? About pure-bloods and Muggleborns?"

Draco seemed to stiffen in all the lines of his body, even the curves of his mouth, and Harry winced. But he rested a hand on the torque and watched Draco silently, reminding him that Harry had accepted the gift even if he did. He just wanted to _know_. It was one thing to protect Slytherins and say they had a right to attend Hogwarts free of harassment no matter what they believed.

It was another thing to touch, to call by his first name, someone who personally believed that Harry was disgusting.

Draco breathed in, and in, and in, and the air, as it came out, seemed to remove some of the stiffness, relax his body back into curves. "No," he said quietly. "I don't know _what _I believed in the last year of the war. Someone told me the Dark Lord was a half-blood, and he killed a professor right in front of me, and he endorsed taking wands from Muggleborns because they must have stolen them from a pure-blood. That's-that's nonsense. I may not like Granger much, but I know her wand is her own. So many things about what they believed seem nonsense to me now. You could only believe them in a war." He gestured around at the stone walls of Hogwarts arching above them. "You can't believe them here."

Harry smiled at him. "That was all I needed to know."

Draco's mouth fell open slightly. Harry thought he could get to like that look on him, if only because an open mouth could be-convenient. "What? Don't you want to know what I believe _now_?"

"You might not know yet," Harry said, and closed one eye in a slow wink at him. "You'll figure it out."

"He'll have to do it without your help!"

Harry turned around and stared at the small figure in the corridor ahead of him. It took him a long minute to place it. "Gabriel Norwood, right?" he said. The boy was a fifth-year Gryffindor, and so Harry had never had much contact with him except one time when he'd tried out for the Quidditch team.

Norwood, his brown hair standing out in what looked like electric ringlets from his head, glared at him. "You should have found someone else to take gifts from and ask about their beliefs," he declared, leveling his wand at Harry. "I'm the-the champion of a lot of people who are fed up with the way you're protecting the Slytherins."

Harry restrained himself from rolling his eyes, because that would hurt Norwood's feelings more than it was worth. "A lot of people are happy about it, actually," he said. "And I'm not being unfair. When a Slytherin tortured a Gryffindor, I gave testimony to make sure she was thrown out of the school."

"But they're dangerous just _being _here!" Norwood's face turned plum-colored. "You don't _understand!_ The people who were here last year-the Slytherins tortured them!"

"Because they thought it was a good idea, or because the Carrows told them they had to to avoid being tortured themselves?" Harry very carefully didn't look at Draco. He didn't think they were up to a detailed discussion of how Draco had acted as Voldemort's torturer right now. "See, I know more about it than you think I do. I agree that what happened to you was horrible and unfair. But the Slytherins either suffered right alongside you or had to torture you because they were afraid of torture, or both."

"They could have run away! They could have hidden in the Room of Requirement like the rest of us! You don't have to _protect _them."

"I would say that they were watched a lot more closely than you were," Harry pointed out. "The Carrows would have noticed if they went missing, and they would probably have found you a lot sooner in the Room of Requirement." He noticed Draco nodding out of the corner of his eye, and smiled at him. _Always nice to have confirmation and support._

_ Especially his._

"So you can blame them, and you can blame me, but you can't say that it's completely unfair that they're here," Harry told him. "What is it that you want with me, anyway?"

"A duel!"

Harry's hand went up to his duelist's torque, especially made to protect a wizard in a situation like this, and he exchanged a silent glance with Draco. Norwood had been present with everyone else in the Great Hall yesterday when Harry received the torque, and Ron had explained what it was. Was he stupid, or what?

"I _demand_ a duel!" Norwood was getting a little shrill.

"Fine." Harry turned around, taking his wand out and already planning what spells he could use that would give Norwood a chance of escaping the duel unscathed. "Draco, will you be my second?"

"Gladly," Draco said, moving back a few steps so that he could be out of the way of the spell-swinging.

Norwood conveyed his opinion of what Harry was asking with a glare of silent outrage. Harry shrugged at him and said, "To first blood. I get to choose the limit of the challenge since you were the one who chose the time and the place."

Norwood's chin tilted up and he said, "_Fine!_" And then he flung a Blasting Curse, a pretty good one, straight at Harry's chest.

Harry didn't even have the time to lift his wand. The Blasting Curse reflected from the torque exactly as it was supposed to and bounced back at Norwood. Harry had to scramble to turn so that the curse hit the stone wall next to him instead, and made stones and dust puff out.

Norwood yelped and scrambled backwards, nursing a scratched arm. Harry watched the blood drip to the stones, and nodded. "First blood," he said.

"Harry."

Draco's voice was low. Harry looked down, and saw that the reflected Blasting Curse had done something else, or perhaps the torque's magic had when it flared to protect him. The watch he'd received from Mrs. Weasley was shattered, hanging open next to the torque, the chain blackened and gears dripping all over the floor.

Harry looked back up, and the murder in his face was enough to make Norwood blanche. He scrambled back again, then turned and ran.

Harry reached up and cradled the watch, saying nothing. What was there to say? Mrs. Weasley had given him her brother's watch, and it had been a seventeenth birthday present, and he had worn it ever since, and now it was ruined. And all because he had tried to soothe Norwood's pride and not insult him too much by agreeing to the duel instead of going to a professor.

"Here. Let me help."

Harry let Draco take the watch in one hand, because what further damage could he do? Perhaps Draco knew the right way to dispose of watches like this, or wanted to help Harry gather up the pieces so Harry could take them to Ron and explain what had happened. If he _could _explain. He was trying to be respectful of everyone's feelings and not humiliate them too much, and what happened? He was an idiot, like usual.

"_Reparo tempus._"

Harry looked down, blinking. The pieces of the watch glowed and sprang out of Draco's hand and off the floor. In moments they were flying back into place, gears locking with gears, tiny cogwheels and important clockwork assembling. Then Draco shut the back of the watch, and tapped the numbers on the front with his wand, and the watch purred to life, quietly ticking away just as it had before.

"I-I didn't think about that," Harry croaked at last. He swallowed.

"Of _course _you didn't," Draco said, and sniffed. "You didn't know the proper spell to repair a time instrument damaged by a curse instead of just by accident." He gave Harry a superior smile of the sort that Harry would have loathed last year, and now felt rather differently about. "But I did."

Harry touched the watch's surface, watched the numbers shine and blaze under his hands, and swallowed again. "You gave me a gift last time," he said. "Two in a row. That isn't fair."

"You can owe me one." Draco turned away. "Come on, we'll be late for class."

Harry followed, in a silent daze. And then he thought of something he could do now, although to really repay Draco he would have to think of something else, and reached out and caught Draco's hand.

Draco stiffened for just a moment. Then all the lines of his body softened again, and his face glowed like the face of Harry's watch.

So they made their way to class.

**The End.**


	7. Fairest of Them All

**Title: **Fairest of Them All

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and her associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairings: **Harry/Draco pre-slash, moving towards slash

**Warnings: **Mild angst

**Rating: **PG-13

**Wordcount: **2000

**Summary: **Harry and Draco work together in Transfiguration, and nudge the apparent project in inter-House unity they've undertaken together along.

**Author's Notes: **This is the seventh in my "Made by Hands" series, a fluffy, slowly developing H/D series set in Hogwarts during their eighth year, following "Roses, Made By Hands," "Sculpted Light," "Leaves, Constructed to Make Anew," "Gold, As Captured Flame," "Gifts, Glittering and Jeweled," and "Algorithms of Radiance." Read the other stories before reading this one.

**Fairest of Them All**

"Today we will begin working on Transfiguring a common object into an enchanted object."

Harry didn't have to turn his head to know that Hermione's hand would have lifted quickly enough to give most normal people an adrenaline rush. Just as he didn't need to turn his head to know that Draco, beside him, would be biting his lip hard enough to make it bleed.

Once, he might have found that second piece of knowledge disturbing, if not the first. But now he could sit there and smile.

"Yes, Miss Granger?" McGonagall had a heavier weight of grey hair on her head than she'd had in past years, and her tartan seemed dulled in color. But she still had a smile for Hermione and the spark deep in her eyes that said she wanted the _right _answer, and that was the important thing, Harry decided.

Plus, she had been the one to issue the Slytherins the invitation to come back to Hogwarts. That had to mean something.

"Why do we _need _to Transfigure common objects into enchanted ones?" Hermione asked, so fast that Harry might not have understood her if he hadn't spent the past seven years listening to her. "I mean, why not just do the enchantments, or buy objects that have those enchantments?"

McGonagall swept the class with an expectant gaze, but no one answered. Harry did feel Draco sit down a little more heavily in the seat next to him, and suspected he probably knew the answer. But if he wasn't going to volunteer it, Harry would hardly push him to say it.

"Enchantments on sold objects are generic, not personal," McGonagall responded at last, returning her gaze to Hermione. "With Transfiguration, provided that you have the strength and concentration, you can make an object that does exactly what _you _wish it to. A Foe-Glass that watches for future enemies rather than only present ones, for example." She paused.

_Or something that could protect someone forever, _Harry thought, and swallowed. He wondered why his parents hadn't come up with an enchanted object like that. He knew his mother had been excellent at Charms, although he didn't know if that meant she could also Transfigure enchanted objects.

"Of course," McGonagall continued, "just as enchanted objects run out and have to have their charms renewed, the same thing can happen to Transfigured objects. Their power wears down the longer the magic lingers, or the more they're used. If the creator doesn't notice, they might wake up one day and find that their enchanted ring is just a sliver of wood again." She paused, looking from eye to eye once more.

"And the Transfiguration is limited by the imagination," she finished, looking at Harry this time. "If you can't imagine exactly _how _this Foe-Glass should work, or how the protective enchantments would function, then they won't. That's one reason that most Transfigured objects are more powerful versions of the commonly sold ones."

Harry nodded, reassured. _No one could imagine how Voldemort could break the Fidelius, so they didn't try anything else to counter it._

"Now," McGonagall said. "We will begin with a simple trial, and one that is the same for everyone." She ignored the couple of groans that got, including one from Hermione. Harry was sure that she'd already envisioned the perfect object. "One of the most common enchanted objects is a mirror. I want you to make a mirror out of one of the starting blanks that I will present to you. And," she continued, with a faint smile curling around her mouth, "I want you to make it for someone else."

"How?" Draco asked aloud, and then started to clap his hand over his mouth as if he were mortified that he'd spoken. Harry caught his hand and slipped it under the table before that could happen. He wasn't about to see Draco humiliated in front of everyone.

McGonagall considered Draco as if to make sure he was serious, then said, "I want you to listen to someone else describe what they'd like out of the mirror, and then make it to their specifications. Think of it as honing your powers of description for the moment when you begin to make more permanent and stable Transfigurations for yourself."

Draco blinked for a long second. Harry watched him, then reached out and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Think about what you want, because I'm going to make it for you," he told Draco, and then stood up and walked towards the pile of flat wooden and metal pieces that McGonagall was stepping back to offer them.

* * *

><p>Draco closed his eyes. His face was on fire, and he knew that the curious stares from Harry's friends weren't helping it any.<p>

How was he supposed to think of something he wanted? More to the point, how was he supposed to make something Harry wanted?

Then he straightened his shoulders and shook his head. So far, he had taken risks with what _he _was, rather than what Harry wanted. Harry hadn't expressed any desire for a dueling torque, but Draco had given him one. And Harry had got the golden cauldron not knowing if Draco would accept or reject the gift.

They had taken enough chances for each other so far that this ought to be simple.

Draco stood up, calm enough now that he thought he could have stared with indifference at Aurors if they walked into the room, and went to choose his metal piece. An oval of silver attracted him. He picked it up, considered the cloudy reflection in it, and nodded. He would have trouble making this into a polished mirror, but that was true about all the others, too, and at least he thought it would be easier than the wood.

By the time he came and sat down again, Harry was back, clutching his own piece of cherry wood. Draco smiled. "Of _course _you're the one who likes a challenge," he muttered to Harry.

"I do." Harry leaned in, smiling, his fingers tapping on the piece of wood as he laid it on the table. "So, tell me what you want."

This was another risk, another exposure of himself, but it didn't panic Draco as much as the thought of trying to make something for Harry and failing had. So he took a deep breath and thought for a second, ignoring the darting stares from other people and the way that Harry looked at him, warm and present and near.

"I'd like a mirror that would always tell me where you are," Draco said at last. "I could look into it and it would show me where you are and what you're doing."

Harry's smile was slow and sweet and dazzling, but luckily, he nodded and bent his head over his piece of cherry before Draco could stare too much and embarrass himself. "Fine," Harry murmured. "And what would I like?"

"I don't know," Draco said, snappish himself in his conflicting feelings. "Don't you have to tell me?"

Harry grinned at him again, with less of the brilliance, and said, "That's right. Now, I think that you don't need to describe more fully to me what you want, because the glass should show where I am just like an ordinary mirror, right?" His voice was almost lulling, and Draco nodded before he thought about what he was doing. "But what I want is going to be a bit more complex."

He reached out and took Draco's hand. Draco didn't think that many people were paying attention to them, because most people were finding partners or fetching blanks or explaining the mirrors they wanted, but he blushed anyway.

He didn't take his hand from Harry's, though. The time for that had passed when they walked to class yesterday holding on to each other's hands.

"I would like," Harry whispered, the motion of his lips nearly as hypnotic as his eyes, "to have a mirror that I could use as a defensive weapon. When I fling it between someone and a curse, it should expand and reflect the curse back to the caster. Of course the glass or the other material it's made of would need to be strong, so that it wouldn't break when it fell to the floor." Draco's free hand moved to rest on the piece of silver he had chosen. "Or it could be hung on a wall or a chest and used to deflect a curse that landed on it there. Mostly, just deflection."

"Reflection," Draco whispered.

Harry nodded.

Draco hesitated. "What about hexes? Do you want it to be able to guard against those as well as curses?"

Harry blinked for long seconds before he slapped his forehead. "Right," he muttered. "I keep forgetting that there's a distinction between those kinds of spells for a _good _reason." He hesitated, mulling it over, before he shook his head decisively. "No," he said. "I want it only to deflect curses."

Draco raised his eyebrows. Harry cocked his head. "Because I'm able to protect myself against hexes, and better than ever with what you gave me." For a moment, his hand caressed the torque lying beneath his shirt. "And most other people should be able to defend themselves against hexes, too. But this will be an unexpected bonus, something that I can use to defend _anyone _who needs it."

"Including Slytherins," Draco said, swallowing. There was a faint acidic taint in the back of his throat, although he didn't know why there should be. If Harry wanted this as a gift, and thought Draco could make it, and had chosen Draco as the one to make it, wasn't that gift and honor enough?

"Including you."

Draco's eyes snapped back to Harry's face. He had never thought that Harry was particularly sensitive to everything around him, certainly not enough to know what Draco was feeling when _Draco _didn't know what he was feeling.

But Harry looked at him with a kind of tender seriousness, and the hold he had of Draco's hand was firm enough to content anyone. "Including you," he whispered, and squeezed Draco's hand one more time before letting it go.

"I think you're going to have the harder time," he continued. "But that doesn't mean I'll finish your mirror fast. What do you say to meeting some time after class so we can see how far we're getting?"

Draco nodded, his heart and his throat full. He was afraid his eyes might be full, too, but if they were, Harry tactfully ignored that, turning away to begin concentrating on the piece of polished cherry wood instead.

Draco looked at his silver, and he looked at Harry, and he thought of the mirror he was going to make, and he thought of the mirror Harry was going to make. Even if the gift he made was going to be used to defend other people, the mirror _Harry _made would only ever show Draco Harry.

_Maybe that's the way to work it. Alone and together—_

Draco had a confused, and confusing, vision of the way they might move together, in the larger circles of the school and their Houses and in the smaller circles around each other at the same time—

But the vision was so incoherent he had a difficult time holding onto it, and in the end, it seemed far better to bend over the silver blank in front of him and concentrate on making the best mirror he could.

They would take the next steps, the fair and the ugly, together.

**The End.**


	8. The Dance of Its Crafting

**Title: **The Dance of Its Crafting

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco preslash

**Warnings: **Fluff, mentions of past angst

**Rating: **PG-13

**Wordcount: **1990

**Summary: **Harry starts working to make the mirror that Draco wants

**Author's Notes: **Eighth in the Made by Hands series, and building very closely off the seventh story.

**The Dance of Its Crafting**

Harry laid down the piece of cherry wood in front of him and stared at it. He reckoned it was a _little _shiny already, but not much. Not as much as it would need to be when it was a mirror. He waved a hand above it, and saw the dim reflection of his palm and fingers move there.

_I might have been a little overambitious._

Draco had chosen a piece of silver to Transfigure into a mirror for Harry. It wasn't glass, the way the final mirror would need to be, but it was more reflective, and closer to the purpose Harry wanted the mirror for—reflection of curses. Transfiguring a piece of wood into a mirror that would allow Draco to see where Harry was at all times was more difficult.

_But Draco said I liked challenges._

Harry smiled. Remembering what Draco had said made that happen to him almost without his will. Draco was _alive _here at Hogwarts, as he hadn't been when Harry first delivered the message to him from McGonagall welcoming him back to Hogwarts.

Harry hadn't been enthusiastic about the idea at first. He knew that some of the Slytherins had been acquitted and so McGonagall had decided to accept them back as students because they still might not have normal lives otherwise. But Harry thought having them at a good distance from victims of the war was the smarter idea.

When he had delivered the letter from McGonagall to Draco, though, he saw what she meant. Draco was in the middle of a spiral of grief and destructiveness. He might turn into a new kind of Death Eater if left to himself, or at least waste his life and teach his children to hate the people who had put them into that position. Condemn people that the Ministry had already declared not guilty, and the whole war could repeat in a generation or so.

So Harry had handed over the letter, and made himself responsible for enforcing the message that McGonagall wanted enforced. That meant making sure that a Slytherin torturing someone, Pansy Parkinson, was arrested, because that was a new crime since the war and one she had to be tried for, but also making sure that people couldn't curse random Slytherins just because they wanted to. That was another sure route back to war, with vengeance replacing justice.

More than anything, Harry thought, walking around the low table in the Room of Requirement that he'd laid the cherry wood on, he didn't want to fight another war. That was worth doing anything he had to, including labor now.

That labor might be as hard as Transfiguring this piece of cherry wood, but Harry would still do it.

The doorknob turned. Harry turned around and smiled. He had sent an owl with the invitation earlier, but he hadn't been sure it would be accepted.

Draco stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. His smile was thin and strained. Harry nodded encouragingly at him and faced the table again. "Did you bring your silver?" he asked. "I thought we could work on this together."

Draco walked slowly towards him and laid the oval of silver on the table beside the cherry wood. His head was bowed. "Who else is coming?" he asked.

Harry blinked, then shook his head. "No one else. Just us."

Draco flicked a little bob of his head towards him. "I thought—this was a general Transfiguration study group."

"No," Harry said. "Since we're the two making mirrors for each other, I thought we could get ideas about it." He laid his hand on Draco's arm, feeling the muscles jump warm and living in his grasp. "If you want to. You can go if you're not comfortable here."

Draco muttered something Harry couldn't make out, and then nodded to the cherry wood. "We should start with yours, since it's harder."

That wasn't quite the way Harry had envisioned this going, but he was agreeable. He picked up the wood and turned it over. "All right. Although I think only the material is harder. What you asked me for is pretty straightforward."

"I thought of something else I want from it."

Harry moved his gaze to Draco at once. "What's that?" He was surprised to hear his voice sound so husky. He hadn't known until Draco said it how much he _wanted _to make something for Draco. It was as though several thousand nerves in his body had all stood up and said _Yes, please._

Draco swallowed. "Maybe I asked for it before," he said. "I can't remember. But I want it to be so that only I can use the mirror. No one else."

Harry nodded, smiling when Draco glanced at him again. "That's fine. Even if someone else wanted to use it to find out where I was, they could ask you. I would rather they do that instead of use the mirror themselves."

Draco frowned. "Really? Why?"

"Because I trust you with my privacy," Harry said. "Not everyone else."

* * *

><p>This was becoming heavier than Draco had thought it would, the atmosphere in the room charging with what felt like silent electricity. Silent and <em>invisible, <em>Draco thought, shuddering a little, as the hairs on his arms stood up and other parts of his body stirred as though they too wanted to reach towards Harry.

And wouldn't that be a mistake?

Draco turned hastily back to his piece of silver. "All right," he whispered. "Can you—can you do that? Make a mirror that shows you, no matter where you are, and what you're doing at the time, and that only I can use?"

Harry turned and looked at his piece of cherry wood, stretching out his hand to caress it. Draco studied it closely for the first time. It was nearly the size and shape of his silver oval, but a little more ragged around the edges, and a little bigger. And of course it wasn't nearly as shiny and polished as the silver was.

"I think so," Harry said. "I think it'll take several rounds of spellcasting. I practiced with that a little during the summer, you know. Casting magic for a long time, and concentrating on it for a long time. I did some rituals. Hermione said that I had to see the strong and peaceful side of magic, too, not just the battle side."

"It was the peaceful side that made the torque you have," Draco murmured, not sure why he said it.

Harry's hand moved up to the gleam of silver at his throat, and he smiled over at Draco.  
>"I know that. Let's see what I've learned so far."<p>

He closed his eyes, and laid his wand against the cherry wood. He began to whisper the spell McGonagall had taught them in class that day, the chant that would turn an object into a mirror. That was a long way from the final enchanted object they would have to create, she had said, but it meant that they would at least have the physical side done, once they mastered it.

"_Speculum creo, speculum creo, speculum creo…_"

Draco felt it rising and welling up all around them, the strong, silent, _deep _magic, the kind that he had only felt before this when the Death Eaters conducted a ritual in his home. This was different from their magic in everything except the strength and the quietness, though. This throbbed where theirs had hummed, sang with life where theirs had had the silent stickiness of bloody death. Draco had always longed to escape their rituals. He thought he could grow addicted to _this _magic.

The magic rose, mounded around Harry like a small hill, and then flowed over his shoulders and down onto the surface of the cherry wood. Draco took an anxious step forwards, wondering if he should be worrying about the magic overcoming Harry. And then who would speak up for him, create his mirror, defend him?

_Befriend him?_

Draco swallowed and stepped back when he noticed that Harry's chest was still moving perfectly regularly, and that the magic was slopping and flowing onto the table. Interfering when someone was in the middle of a ritual like this could be like being Splinched.

Harry's eyes opened. For a moment, they glowed a darker green than Draco had ever noticed them being. Then the magic left them, and Harry sagged.

A chair appeared beneath him before Draco could rush to catch him, the way he almost had. Draco shook his head and reminded himself that this was the Room of _Requirement_. Of course it would give Harry a chair, if that was what he required. Up to this point, the only thing that had been in the bare, windowless stone room was the table with their ovals on it.

Harry leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a second.

Draco finally turned and looked at the piece of cherry wood. He'd been so concerned with Harry that he hadn't seen whether Harry's magic had achieved the desired result.

There was a _perfect _mirror with a wooden back lying there. Draco's hands trembled as he picked it up.

Up close, the glass was less perfect; it was wavering and rippled, and Draco could only see a misty reflection of his face. But he tilted it towards Harry, and it leaped with a flash of green. Draco almost dropped it.

"I'll thank you not to break it when I worked so hard on it," Harry muttered, without opening his eyes.

"I think it's tuned to you," Draco breathed. "Maybe it'll be easier for you to put something of yourself into it, make it so that it only shows you."

"That _was _rather the point of using a spell to make it into a mirror, rather than just Transfiguring it outright." Harry sat up and opened his eyes. He didn't reach for the mirror, just looked at Draco with a soft smile on his lips. "It's going to be tuned to me, but ultimately not mine, and McGonagall said once that every Transfiguration we do is linked to the original caster, just a little bit. I want to make the link the one that shows me, not one that would make the mirror belong to me."

Draco cocked his head. He was glad that Harry was well enough to sit up and open his eyes so soon after using so much magic, but he did wonder about the way he was looking at him. "What are you thinking?"

"That I really like the way you look, holding something I made."

Draco blinked and half-lifted a hand, then let it fall. He didn't know what he would have shielded, anyway.

"I didn't make the letter that invited you back to Hogwarts," Harry whispered, "or that gold cauldron I got you. But I'm going to make this mirror for you, and it's going to be beautiful."

He reached out and took the mirror gently from Draco's limp and trembling hand. Then he put it down on the table and turned to Draco with a smile that was full of sweetness. "Shall we start on yours next?"

Draco gulped air, and said, "It would be my pleasure."

And for the first time in a long time, that was what had filled him. Pleasure, sweet and unalloyed, like the kind he had felt when he was a child, watching his parents dance, learning how to dance himself, learning to name music.

Pleasure—and happiness.

**The End.**


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